YouTube bans firearm sales and how-to videos, prompting backlash

Polly Mosendz and Mark Bergen, Bloomberg

Published
1:08 pm PDT, Wednesday, March 21, 2018

FILE-- YouTube, a popular media site for firearms enthusiasts, this week quietly introduced tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons, becoming the latest battleground in the U.S. gun-control debate.

FILE-- YouTube, a popular media site for firearms enthusiasts, this week quietly introduced tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons, becoming the latest battleground in the U.S. gun-control debate.

Photo: StudioEAST | Getty Images

Photo: StudioEAST | Getty Images

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FILE-- YouTube, a popular media site for firearms enthusiasts, this week quietly introduced tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons, becoming the latest battleground in the U.S. gun-control debate.

FILE-- YouTube, a popular media site for firearms enthusiasts, this week quietly introduced tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons, becoming the latest battleground in the U.S. gun-control debate.

Photo: StudioEAST | Getty Images

YouTube bans firearm sales and how-to videos, prompting backlash

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YouTube, a popular media site for firearms enthusiasts, this week quietly introduced tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons, becoming the latest battleground in the U.S. gun-control debate.

YouTube will ban videos that promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories, including bump stocks, which allow a semi-automatic rifle to fire faster. Additionally, YouTube said it will prohibit videos with instructions on how to assemble firearms. The video site, owned by Alphabet's Google, has faced intense criticism for hosting videos about guns, bombs and other deadly weapons.

For many gun-rights supporters, YouTube has been a haven. A current search on the site for "how to build a gun" yields 25 million results, though that includes items such as toys. At least one producer of gun videos saw its page suspended on Tuesday. Another channel opted to move its videos to an adult-content site, saying that will offer more freedom than YouTube.

"We routinely make updates and adjustments to our enforcement guidelines across all of our policies," a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement. "While we've long prohibited the sale of firearms, we recently notified creators of updates we will be making around content promoting the sale or manufacture of firearms and their accessories."

YouTube has placed greater restrictions on content several times in the past year, responding to a series of issues with inappropriate and offensive videos. Most of those changes involved pulling ads from categories of videos. Google is more reluctant to remove entire videos from YouTube but has been willing to do so with terrorism-related content.

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The NRA is suing the state of Florida to block the state/s first gun law passed after the Parkland shooting. The new bill, signed by Florida governor Rick Scott, raises the minimum age for buying firearms from 18 to 21. It also allows teachers carry guns with permission from local officials, and bans bump stocks. The law does not ban semi-automatic rifles
The NRA filed its lawsuit an hour after Governor Scott passed the bill and is asking officials to block the age restriction. They say the law violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right to bear arms, stating, “Preventing a responsible 20-year-old from purchasing the best tool for self-defense will not stop a deranged criminal intent on committing a crime.”
Federal courts have upheld age restrictions as recently as 2014. The bill’s new age restrictions do not apply to police officers and members of the security forces.
Some Parkland survivors were at the bill’s signing and gun control advocates say the new law is a good first step. But regardless of this, very little has been done in terms of gun control, even though there have been a staggering amount of mass shootings in the country in recent years.

Media: NowThis News

The firearms decision comes days before Saturday's March For Our Lives, a rally organized by survivors of the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.

The new YouTube policies will be enforced starting in April, but at least two video bloggers have already been affected. Spike's Tactical, a firearms company, said in a post on Facebook that it was suspended from YouTube due to "repeated or severe violations" of the video platform's guidelines.

"Well, since we've melted some snowflakes on YouTube and got banned, might as well set IG and FB on fire!," Spike's wrote on Facebook, where it has over 111,000 followers, referring to the social network and its Instagram app. A YouTube spokeswoman said the channel has been reinstated after it was mistakenly removed.

InRange TV, another channel devoted to firearms, wrote on its Facebook page that it would begin uploading videos to PornHub, an adult content website.

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"YouTube's newly released released vague and one-sided firearms policy makes it abundantly clear that YouTube cannot be counted upon to be a safe harbor for a wide variety of views and subject matter," InRange TV wrote. "PornHub has a history of being a proactive voice in the online community, as well as operating a resilient and robust video streaming platform." PornHub didn't immediately return a request for comment on the matter.

Last month, gun-control activists escalated the pressure on tech giants for giving a platform to the National Rifle Association. A flurry of businesses cut ties with the pro-gun group after the deadly Parkland school shooting. Companies with streaming services, such as Amazon.com, Apple and YouTube, declined to remove the NRA channel.